Certain embodiments of the present invention are directed to computer technology. More particularly, some embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for communication technology. Merely by way of example, some embodiments of the invention have been applied to data transmission. But it would be recognized that the invention has a much broader range of applicability.
Among current Internet applications, more and more need real-time data transmission. For example, real-time network video transmission and real-time audio transmission have high demands for real-time data transmission. For these applications related to real-time data transmission, there is usually a need to detect packet loss after a data packet is received. Upon detection of packet loss, a packet-retransmission request is often sent to a sender in order to promptly receive consecutive data packets and ensure the playback continuity. Current data transmission schemes often include: a packet-retransmission request is sent to the sender upon the detection of packet loss and another retransmission request is sent to the sender after a fixed period of time, in order to ensure that consecutive packets can be obtained. As such, the retransmission request is repeatedly sent after fixed time intervals. But the delay characteristic of network transmission can cause some problems. For example, a receiver may send multiple retransmission requests, and a sender receives these multiple retransmission requests and in response to each request carries out a retransmission so as to cause duplicate retransmissions of the data packets, which may take up unnecessary transmission bandwidth and affect network transmission performance.
Hence it is highly desirable to improve the techniques for data transmission.